1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a testing system and method, and more particularly to a testing system of a liquid crystal display panel and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal displays are divided into two categories, namely passive matrix and active matrix, according to the driving method. However, as the demand for high-resolution and large-sized displays is ever increasing, active matrix liquid crystal display will become a main-stream product in the liquid crystal display market.
A liquid crystal display must pass the shorting bar test or the full contact test during the manufacturing process such that the functions of the liquid crystal display are assured. According to the full contact test, the function of each signal line is tested. However, due to the long testing time and the high testing cost involved, the full contact test is not suitable to large scale production.
Referring to FIG. 1, a perspective of a conventional thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) adopting shorting bar test is shown. As indicated in FIG. 1, the TFT-LCD liquid crystal display panel 1 includes a display area 2. A plurality of gate lines 5 and data lines 3 define a plurality of pixel areas on the display area 2, wherein each pixel area has a thin film transistor (TFT) 7 and a pixel electrode 9. Besides, four shorting bars 16a, 16b, 18a and 18b are disposed at the peripheral of the display area 2. The shorting bars 16a and 16b are electrically connected to the data line 3, and the shorting bars 18a and 18b are electrically connected to the gate line 5. During testing, the shorting bars 16a, 16b, 18a and 18b on the display 1 are externally connected to a testing pad (not illustrated), then the TFT-LCD is tested by a testing device via the testing pad.
Currently, most of the active matrix liquid crystal displays have a gate driver (not illustrated) and a source driver (not illustrated) on the panel for generating a gate pulse signal and a data signal respectively. As such testing method is expensive, other alternatives are thus provided. For example, the driving circuit is integrated with the substrate to form an integrated driving circuit. However, due to the difference in the design of driving circuit, the abovementioned shorting bar test and full contact test are not applicable to the testing of the integrated driving circuit.